


You Are (Not) Alone

by omelet



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-14
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:52:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2453720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omelet/pseuds/omelet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Traveler gave me its Light, I was given armor, a gun, and a voice who told me where to point and shoot. </p><p>The life of a Guardian is not chosen. We are bodies resurrected from dust, with minds of children told of a darkness that will consume them. We are drafted soldiers, fighting for the cause because we are being hunted and killed like prey, because we have nothing and know nothing.</p><p>When you take away the armor, the gun and the voice, we, too, are nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are (Not) Alone

"Crazy, huh?"

I look at her, briefly, before looking back down the sights of my rifle. A shot rings out beside me; a Legionary drops dead 100 meters away. I scowl and adjust my grip.

"We had a life hundreds of years ago."

I pull the trigger twice, managing a clean kill on the last Phalanx. She whistles low, though it comes out hollow and tinny through her helmet, and pulls her rifle back, leaning it against her shoulder with a satisfied sigh. 

"And now, we're Light." She turns to me, cocking her head, the eyes of her helmet staring wide at me. Her cloak flicks around her as the wind picks up, kicking up Martian dust. "Isn't that something?"

 

-

 

When the Traveler gave me its Light, I was given armor, a gun, and a voice who told me where to point and shoot. 

The life of a Guardian is not chosen. We are bodies resurrected from dust, with minds of children told of a darkness that will consume them. We are drafted soldiers, fighting for the cause because we are being hunted and killed like prey, because we have nothing and know nothing.

When you take away the armor, the gun and the voice, we, too, are nothing.

 

-

 

I met her in the Ocean of Storms, on a patrol. Most Hunters keep to themselves, some like to engage in friendly rivalries, and even fewer are outright friendly. I learned quickly that she fell squarely into the last category. She had greeted me with a bright "hey there!" as she sidled up next to me on the ridge I had set up on to take out a sizable group of Fallen. She took out her sniper rifle and made quick work of the group I had been working on for a good hour. At the time, I didn't mind; I was just a novice, used to other more experienced Guardians cleaning up enemies I had trouble with.

Then, she did something unexpected.

"You're pretty good with a gun," she called out when I stood and turned to leave to look for another beacon.

I blinked. It was obviously not true, but she seemed sincere. "Thanks," I eventually replied, a little apprehensive, unused to praise.

She stood, slinging her rifle over her shoulder. Her armor was well-worn, marred by the blows of past battles, the metal tinged black in some parts as if it had been charred. "A drifter, huh?" I didn't answer immediately so she jabbed her thumb at her back. "No faction."

I turned my head to look at my cloak. It was just a flat grey cloth that went down to the back of my knees, a little tattered and stained but otherwise plain. I flicked it back with a frown; I didn't even remember where I got it, to be honest.

"Don't mind me. It's nothing," she told me with a smile in her voice, nudging me with her elbow before summoning her Sparrow and climbing on in one smooth movement. Then, she added over her shoulder, "I'll be looking for your Light, Guardian."

That time, the thing that struck me most was not the fact that she was the first Guardian to talk to me, or what she said to me. It was her cloak fading in the distance, the edges frayed and jagged like the wings of a dove, colored the brightest, purest white, even against the silvery surface of the moon.

 

-

 

We are not friends, but she knows where my quarters are in the Tower and she's a Hunter; it's easy enough for her to learn my patterns and movements, to ambush me so she can drag me to go with her to complete bounties and missions. She doesn't do it often, maybe once or twice every few weeks. Perhaps she's even learned of the limit of my tolerance for her boundless optimism.

Regardless, she makes me follow her across the universe, to Venus to pick fights with the Fallen, to the moon to challenge the Hive. Everything that stands in front of her gun falls, every mission she is given is completed, and she does it all like it's her privilege.

The Hunter possesses a pride that I don't understand. She tells me that we have a duty as Guardians, to keep the Light alive, to fight the Darkness. 

It is survival instinct, I always respond. I fight because there is no alternative. I obey because I have no reason to resist. I am only a Guardian because I was made to be one.

I tell her that it is the same for her. All she does is quirk a grin.

 

-

 

"Are you afraid of the Darkness?" She asks me one day, her eyes lit up by the faraway lights of the city.

"Doesn't matter," I answer as I sharpen my knife, the rhythmic scraping of metal on metal cutting through the quiet of the Traveler's Walk. "I still have to fight it."

"Why?"

I let out a heavy exhale, sheathing my knife. "Because I'll die if I don't."

The air hangs heavy between us. "Yeah," is all she says, almost absently.

I look at her. When I had just met her, I noticed that people would point and whisper whenever she walked past. I thought about the way she handled her gun and it occurred to me then that she might have a reputation. 

She could probably kill 100 Fallen with her bare hands. There are stories of a Hunter bearing a white cloak who dove into the depths of darkness, alone, and came back out carrying a wounded Guardian. 

She hugs her knees, clutching that snow white cloak tight around her shoulders, and for the first time since meeting her, doesn't say a word for hours.

 

-

 

All of us have died before but still, death is a tricky thing for Guardians.

Our Ghosts can bring us back and some Warlocks can even bring themselves back given the right conditions, but it is impossible to know if the next time will be the last time. A cheap shot or two isn't enough to keep one down and most are not so rash as to storm the bunkers of the Cabal or the festering tunnels filled with roaming Hive on their own, but it doesn't matter how careful you are. Permanent death is always a possibility.

"We're surrounded," my Ghost says grimly. "I've sent out a distress call. The Fallen don't know where we are so -"

"Okay," I whisper. I stare up at a tiny circle of sunlight, having fallen into a pit and down into a cavern during what was supposed to be a simple scouting mission. Stupid mistake, I think angrily to myself as I try and shrink even smaller than I already have, pulling my knees up to my chest, tucking myself into a corner to hide in the shadows. I close my eyes, my head falling back against the wall. "Okay."

"Breathe, Guardian," my Ghost tells me and I try to tell him off, only to realize that I really haven't been breathing. I choke instead and swear under my breath.

I'm down to six bullets. I can hear the echoes of the Fallen bouncing off the cavern walls.

There's nowhere to run. I should complete the mission, even if I die trying. I should send as much information as I can to the Tower, so they know what's down here.

My Ghost says as much. "If you can stay alive for just thirty seconds -" 

I grab him and shove him down; he disappears through my fingers before I can grind him into the ground. 

The Fallen draw closer, their echoes becoming solid sounds. This is not my time or place. This is not my battle. The edges of my radar flicker red.

"The mission can go to hell. I'm not going to die," I hiss, knowing that my Ghost can hear, the grip on my gun so tight my hands ache even through my gloves. I am not noble. I should not have been made a Guardian. 

Suddenly, the cavern erupts with noise; the Fallen know I'm here. Bullets fly from all directions, grenades lobbed all around in an effort to snuff me out. Scrambling to my feet, I run and shoot, managing to hit a Captain in the shoulder, before taking cover behind a boulder. The Fallen let out that awful battle cry, hissing and screeching like they know that they will win. 

Fuck them. I'm not going to die here. 

I jump out of cover and take down the Captain with a shot to the head, followed up with an arcbolt grenade. Four. I sprint and jump to higher ground, taking out a Dreg with my knife. The air shifts in front of me and I know it well; I duck behind cover and line up my shot, nailing a Stealth Vandal in the head. Three.

More are pouring in. I can feel the force of the sniper rounds pounding against my back as they chip away at my cover. I count the shots before snapping up, taking out the two snipers while they're reloading. 

One.

I hear something come up the steps. On reflex, I point my gun toward it.

Five Vandals.

My finger twitches before I can stop myself.

Zero.

I yank my knife out of its sheath and blink forward, piercing the chest of a Vandal with my invisible blade. Two more fall, I trade hits with the last, the butt of his rifle striking me across the face before I slash him across the throat. Stumbling back against cover with a heavy thud, I try to catch my breath, my head spinning, my heart in my throat. My radar still blares red.

"I don't want to die." It comes out, unbidden, and all it does is make my vision blur and my throat tighten.

The cavern shakes. Something big is coming. _An Archon Priest_ , my Ghost says with disbelief, and I could almost laugh.

I clean off my blade with the edge of my cloak. If I'm lucky, I can fight my way to an escape route. I don't think about the alternative.

I hear another group of Vandals approaching. This time, I'm ready for them. A flash of light fills the dark cavern; before they know it, I'm in the air, coming down on them like a bolt of thunder. I blink in and out, taking them out one by one before they even know I'm there. I ignore the pain and strike again and again, Dregs and Vandals and Captains falling to my arcblade.

I'm in the middle of the cavern when it's over, alone with the Archon Priest. I gaze up at it and the barrel of its gun, knife in hand. I wonder, briefly, if I can make it to the path leading out of the cavern, then, morbidly, how many times I can stab it until it kills me.

"Over here!"

One second, the Archon Priest looks up; in the next, it stumbles back with a pained roar, a burst of fire exploding at its head. Two more shots hit it and just like that, it's eaten away by the fire, reduced to a pile of ash and ether.

I don't need to turn around to know who it is.

"I got your distress call," the Hunter pants, running over to me. "You alright?"

Numb, I manage a stiff nod. A moment later, my legs give out; she manages to catch me by the arm before letting me down to the ground slowly. In the corner of my eye, I can see her looking around the cavern littered with dead Fallen. She whistles low.

"You sure did a number on them, kid. You must've been looking for trouble."

I stare at the ground. A scouting mission, I want to tell her. It was just a scouting mission and I was ready to abandon even that.

She looks at me. It feels like she can see my face even through my helmet. "Let's get out of here," she says, her voice soft even through the gritty filter of her helmet, careful.

Suddenly, I feel my stomach drop as she tugs at my elbow. She must know.

I didn't deserve to be rescued.

"I was going to run," I whisper, my voice cracking. 

She is silent.

"Even if there was someone I had to save," I choke out, "even if it meant saving all of us, I still would have run."

She touches my hand. I realize that I'm still gripping my blade tight in my clenched hand. "It's okay." 

I grit my teeth, wishing I could laugh at the irony. "I'm not like you," I tell her, my voice hoarse. "I'm not a hero."

Her hand tightens around mine, briefly. "You don't need to be. You fight as long as you can hold your blade." She gently unfurls my shaking fist, takes my blade, and puts it back in its sheath. "There's a strength in that, too."

 

-

 

"We haven't been forsaken," I remember her saying once with great conviction. "The Traveler wants us to live."

"Since when did you become the Speaker?" I had retorted.

"You don't think so?"

I shrugged. "I think we only live because it wants to live."

She hummed one of her vague assenting hums and this was what I liked about her. For all her loyalty to a broken god, she was never prideful. "But this is nice, isn't it?"

"Being alive?" I thought about nice shiny guns and the rush of riding a Sparrow top speed through Venus brush.

She shook her head then and gave me a sideways smile. "Not being alone."

 

-

 

The Hive has launched a full-blown assault on Earth. The initial scouting team sent by the Vanguard was overrun within a few hours. All Guardians have been assigned to fireteams and given the order to be on standby at the Tower.

"They're saying it's going to be another war," the Warlock on my fireteam tells me as we resupply at the Tower. Our Titan is training with the others to refine her Defender tactics. "That if we lose here, we might even lose the Last City."

The Hunter was called away by Cayde a few days ago. She hasn't been back since.

"You've got a wild look in your eyes, Hunter," the Warlock quips. 

I check my guns for ammo one more time. I swipe a few more ammo syntheses. "Got a wild idea."

He grins. "I'll go get our Titan."

 

-

 

I was all but deadweight, but she held me still.

After defeating the Archon Priest, she took me all the way back to the surface, holding my waist with one hand and a gun in the other, our boots sloshing through tepid water as she dragged me through the tunnels. We were quiet the whole time, the only sounds being the snarling of the occasional Hive straggler, followed by an echoing gunshot. 

When we finally reached the surface, she set me against a rock before calling out her Ghost. I sat with my head bowed between my knees, listening to it whir until it suddenly stopped.

"You said that I was a hero," I heard her say. "I'm not a hero."

I huffed a weak laugh at the ground. "You want to save everyone. What's the difference?"

I looked up as she walked toward me, her armor clacking against mine as she sat down heavily beside me. She tilted her head back, her helmet thudding against the rock, and sighed, her shoulders sagging, her hands lying limp on the ground.

"I don't do it because it's right," she finally answered after a long pause. I never knew she could sound so tired. "I don't know what's right, or what's wrong. For all we know, we could be the affliction of the universe, the great enemy that's supposed to be destroyed."

My lips twitched upward in a sardonic grin. "We could be," I agreed. It was a thought that had crossed my mind before, one that was too ridiculous to be true, too obvious to be false.

"But it doesn't matter to me."

The sun was red-orange, setting on the horizon. In the distance, I could see the Traveler. I felt my eyes burn. 

"I found you because of your Light. I fought as hard as I could because I knew you were there, doing the same. So don't say that you're ashamed of wanting to live. I want all of us to live. I want you to live." Her voice was shaky. "Isn't that enough reason to fight?"

 

-

 

We go ahead of schedule, taking our jumpships before anyone can catch us. I know the Hunter is on Earth, trying to hold back the Hive.

The Hive has been in these tunnels for a while, long enough to set up traps. I clutch my gun tightly in my hands as I walk through the tunnels alone, separated from my group after an explosion took the floor out from under our feet, my Ghost tracking the closest source of Light. 

My blood runs cold when I hear the screams of dozens of Hive Thralls shaking the walls, the vibrations growing strong as they come closer and closer. It's all so familiar. My hand shakes as I reach for my knife, as the screeches and roars grow louder, ringing in my ears. I feel the Traveler's Light thrumming in my fingertips and I think of that time with the Archon Priest. I think of how I died, when the Darkness first defeated us. I wonder if I fought back then, if I was satisfied in the end.

I wonder if I was scared too.

"If it counts for anything," she told me once, her shoulder pressed against mine, "I think you'd fight if someone needed you. Because I think you understand the desire to live more than anyone else."

With lightning in my veins, I do not think, _please let me live_. With the air crackling with electricity, I think of a swath of white and I pray to the Traveler, _do not let my light go out_.

 

-

 

"You said you'd be looking for my Light."

Mid-teleport to her jumpship, she looked at me over her shoulder, surprised. Perhaps she never expected me to track her down too.

I shouted over the roaring engines of the ship, desperate for her to hear me, "So I'll be looking for yours too."

The last thing I saw before she disappeared was her eyes, shining bright even in the cover of night.

 

-

 

I make it to a huge cavern, dripping with Hive refuse, and it smells like fire.

I tread carefully, my boots leaving prints in the dust coating the ground, bits of bone lodging in the treads. Thousands of Hive must have been here, but not anymore. 

There's one still intact. A Hive behemoth the size of a building, its maw gaping open as if it were still screaming in its death throes, its yellow bulbous eyes wide and dull, half of its body gone, the other half charred and still smoking. This must have been the Hive's trump card, its most powerful soldier that was supposed to give them the upper hand against us. 

Two throwing knives stick out of its chest. My heartbeat suddenly stills.

I lower my gun.

I find her, slumped against a wall, her Ghost smashed to pieces, her gun cast aside.

Her white cloak, folded neatly in her hands.

 

-

 

I carry her body back up to the surface. It is nightfall by the time my boots hit dirt and singed grass. I kneel, placing her carefully on the ground, and take off my helmet. I let it fall to the ground.

The night air is cool against my damp skin. I breathe slow and deep, my chest aching with each breath.

"Hey." I look up. It's the Warlock. I hadn't realized he was there. Over his shoulder, I see the Titan setting down two other bodies. The rest of the Hunter's fireteam, probably. "I'm sorry."

I nod, looking away. I want to tell him about her, how hard she fought, how she saved my life, all of our lives. I want to tell him how she smiled like it was the most natural thing to do, how much she believed in the Traveler, in the Light. In our Light.

Nothing comes out.

The Warlock crouches, his hand hovering over her body. "Her cloak," is all he says. Slowly, I pull it out of her hands; as if in response, the cloak glows white, falling open like the wings of a bird, a warmth spreading through my fingertips.

He must feel it too. It feels like Light. It feels like her Light.

"I'm scared," I admit with a stuttered breath, my fingers curling around her cloak. I'm afraid of the Darkness, of having a life where I have things that I treasure and lose them. I'm afraid that the Traveler will never come back, that we will forever be damned to roam the universe with no purpose, trapped in a life of death and dying. 

Now, most of all, I'm afraid of losing my way, of no longer having a Light to follow.

I feel an arm around my shoulders; it's the Titan, her bulky armor awkwardly clunking against mine as she rests her head against my temple. The Warlock slips his hand under mine and holds it, his grip firm and reassuring.

"There isn't a single Guardian who isn't, Hunter," he says quietly, like a secret passed between the three of us.

I think of her, clutching this cloak around her shoulders, her eyes looking out to the Traveler.

_This is nice, isn't it? Not being alone._

My lip trembles as I press the cloak to my cheek. 

_I want all of us to live. I want you to live._

"Okay," I whisper, tears slipping out of the corners of my eyes. "Okay."

 

-

 

"The distress call came from here."

I stand at the mouth of a Hive temple. I can see them, their eyes glowing in the darkness, challenging me. My Ghost shifts uneasily, but says nothing more.

"Let's go."

My gun raised, the white cloak swishing against the backs of my boots, I step forward and face the darkness.

 

-

 

"If you learn nothing else, learn this: when a Hunter takes up the cloak of a dead comrade, this is a vow."

**Author's Note:**

> May edit later. Written from the POV of a female Hunter, but doesn't have to be read that way.
> 
> Uh so basically, I wanted to try and write about why a Guardian would fight, other than the reason of like, being chosen by the Traveler or something. So there's that. Say what you will about the story, but I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in Destiny's lore.
> 
> All you Hunters probably understand the frustration of getting your twentieth Hardcase Cloak from a blue engram but you gotta admit the description is pretty cool.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Feel free to share your thoughts :>


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